


Learning Curve

by seabright



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-06-29
Updated: 2010-07-15
Packaged: 2018-05-15 09:42:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5781046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seabright/pseuds/seabright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU where the boys of The Pacific are Mu Gamma fraternity brothers at Pacific University.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> is it too early for a fratboys au in this fandom yet? yes? too bad, i don't actually care because i'm writing it anyways! :D this main piece is sledge/snafu centric but i have plans for spinoffs involving all of the other characters. <3 also, please be aware that it's a multichapter fic--second part is already in the works! as such, the rating is tentative for what might occur later on.

“Really, Snafu?”

Snafu glances up from his seat on the couch and lifts an eyebrow. The forty inch plasma screen that some rich alumni left behind last year is paused in the midst of blowing up zombies—Runner had gotten some new game and Eugene hasn’t actually had the time to actually figure out what was left in the living room. Sometimes the brothers have a habit of pilfering games—he can’t count how many times he’s pulled Soul Caliber out from under Burgie’s bed which is a little baffling because Burgie doesn’t even have a gaming console.

“McDonald’s?” Eugene drops his backpack on the ground and sinks onto the couch next to Snafu, “John’s gonna kill you if he finds out that you brought a big mac into this house.” He grabs one of Snafu’s fries anyways.

“Basilone and his health regime can go cry about it somewhere else,” Snafu replies calmly, rattling the ice in his cup, “I paid damn good money to eat this grease and I’ll do it wherever the hell I want.”

“This is disgusting,” Eugene observes, picking up a handful of fries this time as he watches Snafu pick apart the big mac. He chews on a particularly greasy fry for a moment before peering into the abandoned paper bag. “Did you get any ketchup?”

“Stop stealing my fries, you fucker,” Snafu replies. And then, “There’s ketchup in the fridge.”

Eugene doesn’t move from his position, looking at the television screen where there is an impressive spray of blood from a particularly brutal beheading. In his peripheral vision, Snafu is peeling apart the layers of the hamburger and picking out the lettuce. The fries leave a slimy grease on his fingertips, and no doubt Snafu didn’t bother to pick up napkins because Eugene is always the one to shove a stack of them into the bag on the way out.

“You know,” Eugene says after a moment, jerking his thumb at the TV screen, “That’s what they did to make those hamburger patties you’re about to stuff in your face.”

Snafu lifts his eyes to look intently at the screen for all of a moment before he’s back to shredding apart the beef patty. Eugene watches in barely contained fascination—the way that Snafu eats his food sometimes is just _weird_. Even after all this time, Eugene still doesn’t understand half of the stuff that Snafu does.

“You know,” Snafu replies, a smirk tilting the corners of his lips, “You’d be more convincing if you didn’t order steak every time we eat out.”

“That was one time,” Eugene replies automatically, scowling.

“You suck at being a vegetarian,” Snafu says and yeah—

Eugene has to admit that it’s true.

_______________________

Eugene has been at Pacific University for more than two years.

It’s a little bit startling really because it hasn’t really _felt_ like two years at all. He still remembers walking onto campus for the first time, remembers looking at the green sheen of moss growing on red brick and the feeling of stepping into something bigger than himself. He remembers looking at students walking by in pairs and groups, laughter drifting across the college greens and he remembers thinking that he could come here, he could study here for four years. He still remembers the way that he had so desperately wanted to be done with high school—the way that he thought he needed to get away from his parents and take a well-deserved breather.

Two years later, he looks back at the memory of younger him with a sort of exasperation. If he could convey to his younger self how much harder college was than high school, if he could shake some sense past that self-centered determination, he would do it in a heartbeat.

Maybe his parents were the ones who pushed him here—maybe it was the way that his mom’s lips had pursed a little when she scanned down to the bottom of the list of colleges he had been accepted to: an excess of state schools offering merit based scholarships all clamoring for his attention. Maybe it was the way that his dad had drawn him aside and said very quietly, _son, you know that you don’t have to worry about funding your education, we only want the best for you_ —like he didn’t know how much his dad made as head of cardiology—and he had gotten the hint. Yeah he got the hint.

So it was off to Pacific University for him, some old money university ironically located in the northeast named after some dead man who had entirely too much money on his hands and a wry sense of humor.

But really—he thinks as he shoves his key into the door of the Mu Gamma house—he could have done much worse. He likes the people here—he likes his fraternity brothers. And even if he didn’t, Pacific is certainly a nice stepping stone along his way to medical school considering that his mom always seems to derive an unnecessary amount of enjoyment from telling her friends that her sons are attending prestigious universities in the northeast—as if their collective drive and intellect were her own personal achievements.

The inside of the MG house is pretty much about as messy as one might expect from a group of boys living together in the same area. The couch in the living room has been pushed aside in favor of a beer pong table that they’ve all been collectively too lazy to push back down into the basement or put out on the porch. There are still red plastic cups lingering in forgotten corners and Eugene’s gotten so used to this post-party wreckage that he doesn’t even blink as he sidesteps a trash bag of who-knows what that someone’s left out since Saturday night.

Chuckler’s making a sandwich in the kitchen and glances up when Eugene enters. He grins in greeting and Eugene gives a halfhearted smile back as he proceeds to dig through the fridge. There are some truly questionable boxes of Chinese takeout in here and possibly more condiments than vegetables. He shuts the fridge and considers his restaurant options this late at night.

Chuckler picks up his plate and ruffles Eugene’s hair when he passes him on the way up to his room, “Don’t study too hard, Sledge. Your brain just might explode.”

“Yeah,” Eugene agrees amiably in a distracted tone as he contemplates the stove. Last time he had tried to use the thing, he had experienced firsthand why paper plates and electric stoves weren’t necessarily a good combination. Leckie had helped him put out the resulting fire and the pizza he had been trying to heat up was no longer salvageable.

Maybe not a good day to take up cooking.

Shouldering his bag, he jogs up the stairs to his room—and he’s absolutely not surprised when he pushes the door open and finds Snafu is sitting at his desk, head down on what looks like his advanced mechanics textbook. Miraculously, the pen still stands up against the paper in his slack hand though there’s a line of blue ink running down the length of the page.

Snafu probably spends more waking hours in Eugene’s room than in his own. He shares a room with Burgie whereas Eugene has a single, based partially on the fact that his father doesn’t mind paying for it and partially because he likes his privacy—not that he gets much with Snafu practically appropriating his desk at any given moment. Something about Eugene spending all of his time at the library anyway and Burgie’s tendency to play obnoxious music—whatever the reason, Eugene’s gotten used to having to kick Snafu out of his room when he wanders back from a study group at some obscenely late hour.

Eugene glances at the clock on his nightstand—nearly one in the morning—and Eugene is debating dragging Snafu off to bed or recruiting him for a food run. Either way, he has to wake him up, so he shakes him gently by the shoulders.

Snafu drags his head up from the book with some effort, turns his head to look at Eugene for only a moment before he’s looking at the clock on the nightstand too. “Christ. I didn’t mean to pass out for that long.”

Eugene doesn’t have the heart to make Snafu walk with him to the food mart, “You should get some sleep.”

“I should get some fucking coffee,” Snafu growls in response and he closes his heavy textbook with a thud, “What’s left in the kitchen?”

“Nothing,” Eugene replies, “Took the last cup when I left this afternoon—forgot to stop by the grocer’s to pick up a new bag.”

“Hoosier’s not gonna be happy tomorrow morning,” Snafu observes and he gets up from the desk, fishing a cigarette out of his pocket. “Fuck him,” he adds as an afterthought and he’s walking out the door. Eugene drops his bag and looks at the advanced mechanics textbook, the multivariable calculus scrawled in nearly illegible handwriting across crumpled sheets of paper—classes that Eugene has never and will never take. Snafu’s stolen his TI-89 graphing calculator too—brazenly written “Shelton” in sharpie on the back of the battery case even though there’s an _E. Sledge_ engraved into the plastic.

Eugene should care more about the intrusion and blatant disregard for personal boundaries. He should probably be angrier.

But he can’t bring himself to mind at all—not when he finds Snafu accidentally sleeping on his desk and looking like he’s been pulling all-nighters for the past week, with his voice all scratchy from stolen naps and the load of an engineering student weighted on his shoulders.

He can see the light of Snafu’s cigarette halfway down the stairs where Snafu is leaning against the wall, waiting for him.

_______________________

> Received Using: esledge@pacu.edu  
>  Folder: Inbox  
>  Message Status: Opened  
>  Sender: jpmorgan@pacu.edu  
>  To: pacific.mg@googlegroups.com  
>  From: JP Morgan  
>  Bitches get your game face on  
>  Oct 1, 2009 2:22PM
> 
> alright bros  
>  homecoming game this Saturday. LET’S GET READY TO FUCK UP SOME REDS. O ya and come to support basilone, only the sickest motherfucking qb this school has ever seen  
>  SATURDAYT 1100 be there
> 
> JP

_______________________

They don’t spend much time recruiting really—the boys who do come to them have heard about it from alumni, they have fathers, brothers, friends who are brothers in the fraternity. Their chapter at Pacific is relatively quiet—they throw a party or two at the beginning of the year and the rest are generally private functions—most of which consist of the boys just dicking around while drunk. At least once a week, Runner and Chuckler egg Burgie on to inevitable alcohol poisoning while Leckie and Hoosier get progressively more and more belligerent at beer pong (John doesn’t help with the way that he subtly makes jabs at Leckie which Hoosier thinks is absolutely hilarious, despite the fact that he’s only just grinning lazily in the face of Leckie’s outraged squawks). Most of the time though, Eugene lazes on the couch with a beer in hand, pleasantly buzzed and half paying attention to the infomercials on the television screen, while a small part of his brain continuously insisted that a dozen drunk boys in the general vicinity of expensive electronics was _such_ a bad idea. Snafu sits next to the window and chainsmokes, elbow propped up on the windowsill and heavily hooded eyes throwing a half-interested gaze over the rest of the room.

Eugene had originally pledged because his brother Edward told him that it was a good way to make contacts, that Mu Gamma alumni were stretched across the entire globe. Edward had been a fraternity brother before he’d gone off to law school, plus Sid is a brother back home at Spring Hill and honestly, with this kind of pressure, Eugene had no choice but to bite the bullet and clear out his second semester freshman year schedule.

And even though he hadn’t been expecting all that much, he’s still grateful that he’s been pressured into doing it, that he had the stamina to stick through the pledging process. He hadn’t been expecting this—this easy camaraderie. It’s evident in the way that Burgie always kicks his ass in Super Mario Kart but lets him win occasionally when he’s having a bad day and the way that Leckie listens to him go off about whatever without interrupting. Sometimes JP slings an arm around his shoulder and asks him how he’s doing and Chuckler catches him in his room staring blankly at his computer screen sometimes and reminds him to eat.

And of course. There’s Snafu—or Merriell at first which had switched awkwardly into Shelton before he finally fixed Eugene with a vaguely amused look and drawled _why don’t you just call me Snafu_ halfway into February. He isn’t like anyone that Eugene knows back home even though he’s southern too and Eugene doesn’t even know where to start when he’s trying to categorize the other boy—hell, half the time he doesn’t know why he puts up with Snafu or likes him so much.

But they’re all genuine—really feel an obligation to look out for each other and Eugene appreciates them, all of them in a way that he can’t really use words to describe.

It’s with this thought in mind that he’s wandering into the kitchen with a beer in hand, trying to take a breather from the overeager recruits who are all seeking to join MG. Some business major sophomore had cornered him and spent a good thirty minutes telling Eugene that his dad was an oil baron and how much he made a year and what kind of valuable asset he’d be to the fraternity. Eugene kind of wanted to tell him that he really didn’t give a shit about what his dad did—but he kept a polite smile on his face anyway. Half the boys in the room are there because they hero worship John a little—and it’s not hard to pick them out. The keep glancing at John half fearfully and Eugene kind of wants to roll his eyes and tell them that John eats and shits like the rest of them.

Snafu’s standing at the kitchen counter, cutting a lime into progressively tinier and tinier slices. Eugene has to grin a little at the predictability of it all and he leans against the counter next to him. Snafu glances at him, studies his face a moment before smirking a little and turning his attention back to the lime. Eugene can’t even remember if there are drinks out there that even require limes—maybe they’ll be taking tequila shots later.

“Chuckler got you in the kitchen?” Maybe Eugene picked a spot that was a little too close—Snafu’s arm grazes his every time he leans forward into a chop. He’s already settled down though, doesn’t really want to scoot over and Snafu doesn’t seem to care either way so he doesn’t bother giving Snafu his space back.

“He doesn’t want me terrorizing the recruits,” Snafu replies, slanting a look at Eugene that can maybe be interpreted as a roll of his eyes or maybe a smirk. Eugene has to grin a little bit because he still remembers the mildly terrified expressions that most of last semester’s recruits had taken to adopting whenever Snafu was in their vicinity. Snafu didn’t set out their pledge tasks per se—he just took great amusement in making them _harder_. Eugene remembers all of this with a great deal of clarity—if only because he had been on the receiving end of it more than once. He still remembers the four hour trek through snow without his wallet or cell phone.

“I wish you could,” Eugene says in a low tone, glancing at the entryway of the kitchen in case any overeager recruits are wandering around. Snafu turns his head slightly to show that he’s listening but he’s still slicing through limes if only to do something with his hands. “Some of them—they’re just. Huge pretentious dicks.”

Snafu pauses, grins at Eugene a little wildly and he says, “Hey, you wanna know what my first impression of you was?”

“No,” Eugene says firmly—because he’s heard it before. Snafu’s grin only widens and he catches Eugene’s eye before he’s back to cutting lime slices so tiny that neither of them can even pretend that Snafu had been doing it with any intention to be helpful. Maybe Hoosier will bitch about wasting limes later but he’s always been kind of an alcoholic and Eugene has a tendency to side with Snafu naturally, even when he’s being an obstructive asshole so—

“Hey,” Eugene says suddenly. He sets his beer down on the counter. “Let’s get out of here.”

Snafu glances at him, something like surprise written on his face before he sets the knife down and wipes his hands on his pants. His head tilts, an amused light in his eyes and he asks, “Where to?”

Eugene’s not really sure what he’s doing because JP will probably give him shit for bailing but he just _really_ can’t take any more of these recruits. A late night walk with Snafu sounds infinitely better than this and he barely has to think because he’s already up and moving towards the door, “Engineering complex?”

A low hum of agreement and he doesn’t have to look behind him to know that Snafu’s following.

_______________________

> Received Using: esledge@pacu.edu  
>  Folder: Inbox  
>  Message Status: Opened  
>  Sender: ksloan@biology.pacu.edu  
>  To: biol4029@lists.pacu.edu  
>  From: Kevin Sloan  
>  Information about the midterm  
>  Oct 8, 2009 9:15AM
> 
> Students,
> 
> Several of you have approached me about whether or not you have to memorize the electron transport chain mechanisms described in chapter 8. Seeing as this is an upper level biology course, you will be tested on the patterns and the concepts of many of the mechanisms. Please study accordingly.
> 
> To clarify, the midterm will cover chapters 5-9.
> 
> Best,  
>  KS
> 
> _
> 
> Received Using: esledge@pacu.edu  
>  Folder: Inbox  
>  Message Status: Opened  
>  Sender: getmean@gmail.com  
>  To: esledge@pacu.edu  
>  From: M. Shelton  
>  (no subject)  
>  Oct 8, 2009 10:03AM
> 
> [ http://vigilantcitizen.com/?p=1676](http://vigilantcitizen.com/?p=1676)
> 
> _
> 
> Received Using: esledge@pacu.edu  
>  Folder: Inbox  
>  Message Status: Opened  
>  Sender: campbell@pacu.edu  
>  To: pre-health@lists.pacu.edu  
>  From: Lawrence Campbell  
>  Personal Statement Workshop Next Thursday 10/15 7PM  
>  Oct 8, 2009 10:39AM
> 
> Career services is holding a personal statement workshop next Thursday 10/15 at 7:00PM. You are strongly encouraged to attend this workshop especially if you are applying for medical/dental school this upcoming summer. Refreshments will be provided.
> 
> _
> 
> Sent Using: esledge@pacu.edu  
>  Folder: Outbox  
>  Message status: Sent  
>  To: getmean@gmail.com  
>  Re: (no subject)  
>  Oct 8, 2009 10:52AM
> 
> Dude, if you’re going to try to make me read your stupid links, you’re going to have to do a better job _hiding the URL_. I’ve clicked on vigilant citizen too many times to be tricked again.
> 
> PS. If you’re so concerned about Lady Gaga controlling your mind, maybe you should _stop playing her all the time_.

_______________________

_______________________

Snafu likes going to the gym, even though the treadmill makes him feel winded and out of shape after forty-five minutes. Maybe it’s all of the cigarettes he likes to smoke clogging up his lungs—hell, he’s caught Eugene looking at them askance more than once—or maybe it’s because of all the shit he calls food that he puts into his body on a regular basis. Either way, there’s something satisfying, something visceral in the way he feels his pulse beat in his neck, the slide of sweat pooling in the hollow between his collarbones. It’s fucking disgusting and it feels fucking great.

He drags the headphones out of his ears long enough to splash water on his face and to stare at himself in the mirror for a brief moment, at the circles under his eyes and the sheen of sweat still clinging to his neck. It doesn’t last long; he sweeps up the headphones and he’s out the door, glancing up at the clock across the entrance to the weightroom. Nearly ten o’clock but still fifteen minutes before Eugene said he’d meet him in the locker room.

Snafu stands in the atrium of the gym and he looks out the front doors. He chews briefly on the inside of his lip, debating between stepping out for a smoke or indulging in his own masochist tendencies. He fumbles in his pocket for his lighter, looks out the doors again, and turns on the heel of his cheap sneakers.

The pool smells unsurprisingly like chlorine and it’s quiet in here—muted away from the perpetual sports coverage and upbeat electronica in the atrium. There’s only one other person in here and Snafu sees him cutting through the wavering water at the far end of the pool. The floor is damp from the constant humidity and a little slippery but Snafu figures he’s already sweaty and disgusting and that he’ll be washing it all off soon anyway and he takes a seat at the edge. It takes him a moment to take off his socks and his shoes and he’s dropping his legs over the ledge, the water lapping at the skin midway up his calf.

He turns his eyes up and watches the figure come closer, arms spread in a butterfly stroke and Snafu watches him silently, pale eyes intent on the curve of shoulder, dark hair bobbing up and down out of the water in smooth cyclic moments. And then he’s right there, pressing a palm up against the wall and treading water as he pulls his goggles up and into the hair that drips into his eyes, “Hey. You finish early?”

He’s all brilliant smiles and beads of water sliding down the pale expanse of neck and Christ, Snafu doesn’t know why he does this to himself, doesn’t know why he ever thought it was a good idea to wander down here in the first place. Not with the way that his mouth has gone dry, the way that his eyes have fixated distantly on that juncture of neck and shoulder and he—

Eugene is fucking killing him. He’s killing him and he doesn’t even fucking know.

“Thought you’d have given up and started sulking in the kiddie pool by now,” Snafu replies and it’s drawn and disinterested as ever, delivered with something like one of his trademarked slow smiles.

Eugene just laughs and curves a hand around his ankle and he says, “Get your goddamned feet out of my pool, Shelton.”

It’s a fucking testament to how long Snafu has wanted Eugene, a fucking testament—the way that Snafu doesn’t even blink at the contact, doesn’t move his foot away. He breathes in shallowly and feels time slow to a haze on his skin, is suddenly fascinated by the way that the fluorescent light casts a distinct shadow of eyelashes on Eugene’s cheek. Snafu always has half a mind to lean back and laugh because holy fuck he has got it _bad_ , especially when Eugene is half naked and pressing the pad his thumb into the space behind the bone of Snafu’s ankle and looking at him and Snafu has to wonder if he’s crazy enough to do this on purpose.

But he can’t touch Eugene, knows better than to even try because Eugene has a worn bible that he keeps in the drawer of his desk, because even if Eugene happened to bring back boys instead of girls, he would still be so far out of Snafu’s league that Snafu knows not to waste his time.

It’s masochism, really. It’s just an interesting exercise in self control that Snafu is slowly learning how to fully master. There’s nothing more to it.

He smirks and kicks Eugene away but keeps his feet in the water, “Don’t see your name anywhere on it, Sledge.”

The corner of Eugene’s lip lifts briefly. He flips—all fluid movement—and he’s swimming to the other end of the pool.

Snafu leans back onto the palms of his hands and he watches the long line of Eugene’s body beneath the water.

_______________________

> Oct 19, 2009 7:43:16 PM  
>  Callback Number: Merriell Shelton (Mobile)  
>  hey when u goin 2 grab dinner
> 
> Oct 19, 2009 7:47:12 PM  
>  Ochem midterm tomorrow, stuck in library
> 
> Oct 19, 2009 7:48:52 PM  
>  Callback Number: Merriell Shelton (Mobile)  
>  lol. did u already haev dinner
> 
> Oct 19, 2009 7:49:34 PM  
>  Callback Number: Merriell Shelton (Mobile)  
>  can i come join u
> 
> Oct 19, 2009 7:51:16 PM  
>  Lol, no.
> 
> Oct 19, 2009 7:52:39 PM  
>  Callback Number: Merriell Shelton (Mobile)  
>  bitch
> 
> Oct 19, 2009 7:53:15 PM  
>  Dude, last time we “studied” together, you turned it into a  
>  2 hour youtube session.
> 
> Oct 19, 2009 7:54:21 PM  
>  Callback Number: Merriell Shelton (Mobile)  
>  im sry u have no self control  
> 

_______________________

“I’m just sayin’—“ Leckie has his feet propped up on the coffeetable and he’s looking from the television screen to Hoosier, “I’m just saying we could do with a few games that _aren’t_ first person shooters.”

“And I’m sayin’—“ Hoosier replies, eyes intent on the screen as he moves across the terrain by leaping continuously, “That if it ain’t a first person shooter then it’s gonna be a godawful RPG. Leckie, I refuse to taint my Xbox with RPGs. You can buy your own console and your own games.”

Eugene pushes the joystick up a tad and the crosshairs turn red—reflex and he’s shooting but nothing’s hitting because Hoosier keeps jumping and moving out of range. Snafu snorts lightly from his semi-sprawled position across half the couch and Eugene kind of has half a mind to smack him with the controller because he _knows_ —hell, _all of them_ know—that he’s kind of actually terrible with this damn game. He hates the joypad interface and hasn’t mastered any of the weapons and he hasn’t put any hours into it at all—

The screen blanks out on him before it tells him that he’s made one kill and been killed eighteen times.

Snafu’s suddenly sitting up and pulling the controller away from him, “Jesus Christ, Eugene, this is painful to watch.”

“Excellent,” Hoosier grins, “An actual challenge.” And then belatedly, “Sorry Eugene, but you really suck.”

“No offense taken. I know,” Eugene mutters but he can’t help but set his jaw a little and stare hard at the screen. Snafu picks up a sniper rifle almost immediately and Eugene may not be around much when the brothers procrastinate with video games but he’s been around enough to know that it’s Snafu’s favorite weapon.

“You’ve used your disappointed look on me too many times to be effective,” Hoosier says to Leckie’s expression, “Remember how I scoffed when you actually wanted to spend two hundred on that hardcover set of the Divine Comedy? This is kind of like that.”

“That was a limited edition printing!”

Snafu locks in on Hoosier. His eyes narrow and it’s only a moment before Hoosier’s screen blanks out.

“Two to eighteen,” Basilone observes amusedly from the doorway, “You still have a lot of catching up to do.”

“Hey John,” Leckie says, tilting his head back and looking at John upside down, “Throw me a quote, will you? I need to write an article about last week’s win.”

“Sure,” Basilone agrees amiably, tosses Leckie a smirk and, “How about: _fuck you, interview me properly, I’m going to make myself dinner?_ ”

“That’d go over well,” Leckie says wryly.

Snafu shifts closer suddenly and his eyes are fixated on the screen but he’s leaning in towards Eugene. Eugene can feel the warmth of his shoulder seeping across into his side—the steady patter of Snafu’s thumb on the trigger button.

“The trick—“ Snafu says quietly, low enough that Eugene thinks he can feel the vibrations of his voice better than he can actually hear him, “—is to stay in one place and wait for him to come to you. Basic tactical maneuver.”

Eugene laughs quietly, “Not all of us are planning to do this for a job, Snafu.”

Snafu doesn’t reply for a moment, something on the screen has caught his attention and within moments, Hoosier’s screen blanks out again.

“Can’t call that a fluke,” Leckie comments with something like a grin. Hoosier scowls and gives him the middle finger.

Snafu looks at Eugene, smiles slow and lazy and his attention turns back to the screen.

Eugene leans against the back of the sofa and considers closing his eyes to take a nap. It’s been a fucking long week and he needs to unwind, needs to wipe his mind of the chapters he needs to study, the problems that he hasn’t finished, the way that two of his study groups tomorrow conflict with the game—he needs to set it all aside and just. Breathe.

Snafu nudges him with a knee, and Eugene opens his eyes again. Snafu’s tilting his head slightly, looking at him out of the corner of his eye and he says, “You should go upstairs. Quieter.”

Eugene drags a hand over his face, sighs, and he gives Snafu a tired smile. He doesn’t move though—doesn’t want to move because he’s relaxed on the couch and he kind of likes it here, with Snafu sitting next to him and Leckie’s low chuckles and it reminds him of the low chatter of home, the shouts of an impromptu soccer game in the backyard, and if he closes his eyes, he might just.

Fall asleep.

_______________________

> Received Using: esledge@pacu.edu  
>  Folder: Inbox  
>  Message Status: Opened  
>  Sender: getmean@gmail.com  
>  To: esledge@pacu.edu  
>  From: M. Shelton  
>  (no subject)  
>  Oct 27, 2009 10:59PM
> 
> [ http://www.cracked.com/article/161_6-things-your-body-does-every-day-that-science-cant-explain/](http://www.cracked.com/article/161_6-things-your-body-does-every-day-that-science-cant-explain/)  
> 

_______________________

>   
>  **M:** hey i need a costmue idea  
>  Sent at 11:39 pm on Tuesday  
>  r u even there?  
>  **me:** Yeah you need a costume idea, etc.  
>  Idk.  
>  I don’t even have a costume idea for myself.  
>  **M:** what r u doing tomorrow  
>  if u say lab, i’m disowning u  
>  Sent at 12:01 am on Wednesday  
>  **me:** It’s not like I can CHOOSE when I get to go in.  
>  **M:** no  
>  wrong answer  
>  ur coming costume shopping with me  
>  6pm, parliament  & lancaster  
>  Sent at 12:04 am on Wednesday  
>  **me:** Btw, I spent the last hour on cracked thanks to you.  
>  **M:** LOL np

_______________________

“Are you shittin’ me?”

Eugene can pick out Snafu’s distinctive drawl even above the heavy bass thudding through his skin and jarring his bones. It’s a little hard to discern what exactly he’s saying but there’s a strain of real anger in his voice that alarms Eugene. He’s had a few too many drinks and at this rate he’s only going to do more harm than good. Eugene doesn’t even have to think before he’s threading through the crowd and grabbing Snafu by the arm.

Snafu turns angrily, maybe moves as if to shake Eugene’s hand off of his arm but then he realizes who it is and he visibly calms. His smile is more teeth than friendly and he gestures at the boy he had been addressing earlier, raising his voice over the music, “Eugene, can you believe this costume?”

“The fuck you got against Pokemon, man?” the boy in the costume replies hotly. Eugene has to bite his lip to keep from laughing out loud—the boy is dressed in a Pikachu costume. Eugene doesn’t know what company would _ever_ make the costume in a size that large but clearly they’re making money so Eugene really doesn’t have anything to say. His hand just tightens around Snafu’s upper arm and he smiles blandly at the boy. He recognizes him, a little bit—maybe he’s a pledge this semester. Eugene spends too much study and not enough time at fraternity functions.

“You’ll have to excuse my friend. See, when he was a little boy, his parents never got him a gameboy and he’s been bitter ever since.”

Pikachu looks skeptical and Snafu scowls at him but fuck if Eugene’s going to take the chances of a fight so he just pulls Snafu away and hopes that Pikachu doesn’t follow.

“I ain’t letting any fuckin’ rodents into this fraternity,” Snafu mutters as Eugene drags the two of them onto the fire escape outside Eugene’s window.

“You’re just looking for a fight,” Eugene says back and Snafu digs through the pockets of his pants for a cigarette and lighter. There’s a breeze out here drifting through the corrugated steel and it’s a welcome change from the stifling heat inside. Eugene tips his head against the wall of the house and watches Snafu curse as he fails to light his cigarette for the third time.

“C’mere,” Eugene murmurs, reaching forward and plucking the lighter out of Snafu’s fingers. Snafu scowls heavily at him but he scoots closer anyway and leans in towards him as Eugene flicks a flame into existence easily. Snafu breathes in on his cigarette and Eugene tucks the lighter back into Snafu’s pocket. Snafu shivers slightly, eyes intent on Eugene’s face and huh—yeah, it is a little cold out here, especially when Snafu’s only wearing a wifebeater and suspenders.

“Please tell me you didn’t steal that hat from an actual construction worker.”

Snafu just grins and turns his head away. The house next door is playing music on their rooftop and the music sounds tinny from this distance. The sound of their laughter carries on the wind and Eugene thinks belatedly that maybe he should go back inside, maybe Chuckler needs help manning the bar. But he doesn’t really want to—likes it better out here, even with Snafu burning up his lungs and blowing smoke into the wind—likes it better even when neither of them are saying anything, just looking out over the dead grass and silhouette of trees.

“You were wrong,” Snafu says suddenly.

Eugene turns his head, “What?”

“You were wrong,” Snafu repeats, propping his wrist against his knee and flicking ash that drops between the strips of painted steel, “I had a gameboy.” He’s still looking away, at the rooftop party where someone is lighting a candle. It’s a tiny pinprick of light in the vague distance.

Eugene doesn’t really know what to say in response. Snafu doesn’t go to extreme lengths to hide that he’s not exactly the most well off financially, but he doesn’t really ever bring it up either. All of the brothers know that Snafu’s only at Pacific because he’s on some military scholarship—some sort of deal where the army paid for his education and he owed them a good fraction of his life in the service.

Eugene doesn’t know much about Snafu’s parents or where exactly in New Orleans he comes from—Snafu doesn’t like talking about it so it never comes up in conversation. He just knows that Snafu’s an only child, that sometimes he relates stories from his job at the gas station or the sandwich joint in this distant sort of voice like he’s speaking from a lifetime away. He knows that sometimes Snafu makes him painfully aware of his status as upper middle class, that sometimes he can’t believe what Snafu has done to pull himself out of _that_ situation and into this university, that sometimes he’s a little bit in awe of it all.

Snafu’s drunk—it’s the only reason why he’s relating all of this now, the only reason why he tips his head back contemplatively against the side of the wall and lifts the cigarette to his lips, “I stole it from a classmate.”

Eugene’s forehead wrinkles. Can he imagine ten year old Snafu stealing from his peers? Hell, it’s hard to imagine a ten year old Snafu.

“My ma made me give it back though,” Snafu concludes, picking absently at a piece of chipped paint. He smiles again—another smile with all teeth and no pretense of humor and maybe Snafu’s just a little angry today, maybe the alcohol’s making him a little vindictive. Eugene doesn’t know. He waits a few moments, waits for Snafu to deliver a punchline or moral or _something_ else but he doesn’t say anything else. He just stubs his cigarette against the steel and sets his jaw and looks away.

Maybe there is a lesson here, maybe Snafu is saying everything that he needs to in the silence of his hunched shoulders. Maybe there is a lesson but Eugene is feeling too stupid to piece it together, too buzzed to understand what Snafu is trying to tell him.

Eugene’s phone makes a beeping noise and Eugene draws it out of his pocket, brow furrowing as he tries to make out the tiny letters on the screen. He taps out a quick reply and then he’s straightening to his feet and setting a hand on Snafu’s shoulder, “Hey, I’m going to head back in. You coming with?”

Snafu doesn’t reply, just stares at the dim flicker of candlelight on a rooftop where he isn’t. Eugene pauses, considers sitting back down, unsure what to do with this weighted silence, so unlike Snafu’s half smirks, his concerned eyes. There’s something wrong here, something that he just isn’t getting.

But his phone beeps again and Eugene lifts his hand and he disappears into the window of his room, leaving Snafu behind sitting on a fire escape to stare at nothing at all.

_______________________

> Nov 1, 2009 12:16:23 AM  
>  Callback Number: Rakhi Pawar (Mobile)  
>  Can you come down and let me in?
> 
> Nov 1, 2009 12:17:02 AM  
>  Suure, be there in a sec
> 
> Nov 1, 2009 12:17:35 AM  
>  Callback Number: Rakhi Pawar (Mobile)  
>  Ok :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An AU where the boys of The Pacific are Mu Gamma fraternity brothers at Pacific University.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ajskdhfaksdf. I HAD SO MANY THINGS TO SAY ABOUT THIS BUT I DON'T ACTUALLY REMEMBER ANY OF THEM. awesome! probably because it's 5am WHY DO I ALWAYS POST FICS AT LUDICROUS HOURS IN THE MORNING?

It’s seven in the morning when Snafu opens his eyes. It’s dark in the room and it smells vaguely like too much fruity alcohol and sex and Snafu kind of wants to throw up. He’s looking at the back of some girl’s head and Jesus _Christ_ he needs to get out of there as soon as possible. It doesn’t take a fucking genius to put two and two together to get that he had gotten far too drunk last night.

It happens like this: JP hands him a beer or two and it would be rude to say no and fucking lame to not drink at his own fraternity’s function, so he drinks. Two beers turns into four shots, one straight after the other with Burgin grinning and cheering him on. Once he’s past that point—there’s no goddamn return, just a train headed straight for a fucking wall or in this case—

He rolls off the bed and feels a wave of nausea hit him straight in the gut and oh Jesus Christ there is _no fucking way_ that he wants to make this low point in his life exponentially more embarrassing by puking all over his one night stand. She stirs slightly when he gets up off the bed and he panics a little because he has no fucking clue what her name is—then he realizes that it’s the fucking _least_ of his problems and he sort of wants to die a little because he seriously feels like shit. If he vomits all over the tiny sparkly dress he probably took off her and tossed haphazardly on the ground last night, he utterly can’t be blamed.

By some miracle, he manages to get his clothes on in some semblance of normality though his wifebeater is inside out and he ends up tying the damn suspenders around his waist because _fuck_ if he knows how to work clips and prays to god that nobody he knows is up and wandering about at this ludicrous hour in the morning. He doesn’t even look back as he leaves the room and concentrates very hard on not letting his stomach get the better of him as he puts one foot in front of the other and starts on his goddamn walk of shame home.

It’s not until he gets outside that he realizes that the building he just left was _Craig_ —the _freshman dorm_.

He really fucking wants to die.

Instead he attempts to drag himself the two blocks off campus back to the Mu Gamma house. It’s fucking cold and he has to stop and lean against a telephone pole briefly to fight off the nausea while a security guard at the corner of the street eyes him suspiciously like he’s still drunk. He calms himself forcefully because he has the feeling that the security guard might call campus police on him if he actually does vomit onto the side of a newsstand and he’s thinking about his bed and how there’s only half a block left.

By the time he makes it to the door, he realizes with a sort of perfect frustrated clarity that he _does not have his keys_. One of the brothers had taken the key from under the bottom of the porch sometime last month and never bothered to replace it—and he really isn’t in the fucking mood to go climbing around on the fire escape out back, especially since none of them lead to his room. Pressing his forehead against the door, he swallows a scream of frustration and instead shuffles over to the questionably stained tattered couch that they keep out on the porch. He looks and feels like shit and he’s well aware that the entire world can see him as they pass by on the sidewalk but he’s so far beyond caring that he just curls up at one end of the couch and fucking goes back to sleep.

When he wakes up, it’s to the sound of the door closing and the click of high heels against the planks of the porch. It’s enough to make him sit up and open his eyes forcefully—he really needs to get inside.

“You okay Merriell?”

He recognizes that voice. It’s fucking instinct that makes him want to bare his teeth and snap back a completely unwarranted retort. He knows the voice and he knows the tall Indian girl who is standing on his porch and looking at him a little concernedly as she pushes her long hair behind one ear. She looks, for all intents and purposes, like she had just come freshly showered from her own apartment, like she hadn’t been sleeping in someone else’s bed. There’s a slight smudge to her eye makeup, a tiny tear in her dress and Snafu hates her, he has never hated anyone more than in that fucking moment with this misery of a hangover and her unwanted sympathy pouring over him like caustic acid.

“I’m fine,” he snaps back and she physically takes a step back, eyebrow raising just the slightest but she looks more exasperated than hurt. She’s been on the receiving end of his glares more than once before, familiar with the way that he hunches in on himself sometimes—the strange way that he fluctuates between smiling pleasantries and outright loathing. He’s staring at her sullenly now, biting the back of his lower lip. She pauses for only a moment before her lips thin and there’s a mixture of wariness and coldness in the way that she gives him a perfunctory smile.

“Take care of that hangover, Shelton.”

And then she’s walking down the stairs and Snafu sort of hates himself for the way that she doesn’t take a glance back, for the way that his head hurts and the way that he’s fucked up once again for the millionth time. He can’t help it, can’t stem this stupid loathing and jealousy any more than he’s able to stop texting Eugene when he’s in the library, any more than he’s able to stay out of Eugene’s room for longer than a few days. It’s fucked up and unhealthy and completely irrational and he for all of his realizations, he can’t bring himself to act in order to better himself.

Instead he gets up off of the couch and opens the now unlocked door. Burgin’s coming down the stairs as Snafu’s coming up them and he pauses with a slightly wide-eyed look at Snafu and he says, “You look like shit man. You okay?”

It earns him a glare. Snafu sets his jaw and doesn’t even respond.

Burgin breathes out in a sigh, punches him on the shoulder lightly as he passes, and offers a smile with some advice, “Sleep it off, Shelton.”

As Snafu stops in front of the room he shares with Burgin, he hears voices filtering up the stairs. For some reason, he doesn’t open the door immediately, has one hand on the doorknob and he’s just paused, listening.

“That Rakhi girl just left. Surprised that she keeps coming back round, to be honest.” It’s Hoosier’s muffled voice, no doubt with his lips pressed around a cigarette as he leans towards an open window in the kitchen for his morning smoke.

“Oh,” Burgin replies. Snafu hears the fridge door shut, “I guess that’d explain why Snafu was in such a terrible mood.”

“More importantly,” Hoosier’s voice is clearer now and Snafu can practically imagine him flicking the cigarette lazily into a half-empty mug of day old coffee, “What’s Sledge’s secret to keeping a girl like her around?”

Snafu doesn’t feel like listening any longer. He walks into his room and shuts the door after him.

_______________________

_______________________

Tomatoes are on sale for 99 cents a pound. Eugene kind of hates putting tomatoes on his sandwiches but he remembers that JP likes them so he might as well as get a few. Strawberries are $5 for two containers and he’s half considering throwing two containers into the cart when he wheels it past Snafu towards the fruit aisle with an exasperated, “Please stop fondling the cantaloupe.”

Snafu throws him a smirk and shoves his hands into his pockets, loping after him with his eyes on the produce, like he’s looking for other hapless vegetables to molest. Eugene is kind of torn between ignoring him and dragging him along—he’s never sure when Snafu’s doing it on purpose just to piss him off or when he’s just bored. Often times it’s a combination of the two.

He comes to a stop in front of the strawberries and stares at them for a moment, chewing on the inside of his lower lip. Snafu comes up behind him, looks first at his face and then at the strawberries and picks up two packs and drops it into the cart with an amused drawl, “Goddamn Eugene, I don’t know how the fuck you do grocery shopping with them damn crises over organic produce every three seconds.”

“This isn’t a problem at Whole Foods,” Eugene mutters and Snafu makes a half strangled noise that sounds like a cross between a hysterical laugh and a snort of derision.

“I know that Basilone appreciates your concern,” Snafu says as he hooks his fingers around the mesh at the end of the cart and tugs it forward, “But I assure you that the rest of the house _doesn’t give a shit_. Hell, have you seen the grocery list this week?”

Eugene pulls out the wadded piece of paper he grabbed from the counter on his way out and smoothes it out. Snafu glances at him over his shoulder, steering the cart away. “Eugene, where on that list do you see any vegetables? Or fruits?”

Eugene looks at the list.

“Besides ketchup,” Snafu amends quickly.

“Ketchup isn’t a vegetable,” Eugene replies automatically, grabbing a bunch of bananas and placing it in the cart as they pass the display.

“It’s made from tomatoes.”

“We could get _real_ tomatoes.”

“Tomatoes have no real redeeming features,” Snafu shoots back, pauses and then adds, “Except ketchup.”

Eugene gives up and considers the rest of the list. He can’t think of anything more unappetizing than fake cheese powder but Chuckler and Runner have some unshakeable fixation on Easy Mac. They’re apparently out of Tostitos which is pretty much a staple of JP’s diet.

He sighs a little. At least eggs aren’t processed.

Snafu drops something else into the cart. Eugene glances at him before peering into the cart and saying very flatly, “Chicken nuggets? Snafu, I’m a vegetarian.”

“Right,” Snafu agrees.

“Did you know that chicken can be categorized as a meat?”

“These are dinosaur shaped,” Snafu replies.

“Oh,” Eugene mutters rolling his eyes, “That makes it okay then.” He doesn’t take them out though and Snafu tips his head at Eugene with the vague impression of a smirk. He disappears into the store again, leaving Eugene to pick up a carton of eggs and the all-important ketchup.

He should really know better by now—but some lessons he has to learn repeatedly. Snafu slips into line next to Eugene just as the cashier is getting the last of Eugene’s items and he sets—

Eugene makes some sort of noise at the back of his throat that’s supposed to be a _oh god_ and _no_ and _seriously, Snafu, are you still thirteen years old?_ but comes out as none of those. It’s more of a weird groaning explosion.

“Uh,” the cashier says, picking up the tube of KY hesitantly, “Are these yours also?”

Before Eugene can step in and say _no, absolutely not_ Snafu says, “Yes.”

The way that Eugene jabs Snafu in the ribs with his elbow is not aiming for subtlety. Snafu fights it off with a bland smile.

The cashier weighs the cucumbers, biting her lip the entire time like she’s trying hard not to laugh. When she picks up the condoms, her eyes flick to Snafu and she is visibly amused.

“They’re for him,” Snafu clarifies, slipping an arm around Eugene’s waist.

“No they’re not,” Eugene is glad to have found his voice again. Meanwhile, the cashier looks amused.

“I hate you,” Eugene says with conviction, twisting out of Snafu’s grasp to pay for the items, “So much. I am never taking you out in public again.”

_______________________

> Received Using: esledge@pacu.edu  
>  Folder: Inbox  
>  Message Status: Opened  
>  Sender: mary_sledge@gmail.com  
>  To: esledge@pacu.edu  
>  To: edwardsledge@lewittlaw.com  
>  From: Mom  
>  Thanksgiving plans  
>  Nov 7, 2009 10:22AM
> 
> Edward & Eugene  
>  Your father and I will be in New York City for a cardiology conference the week after Thanksgiving so we decided that we would come up north to celebrate Thanksgiving with you boys. Let me know if you think this is a good idea or if you’d prefer coming home.  
>  Love,  
>  Mom
> 
> _
> 
> Received Using: esledge@pacu.edu  
>  Folder: Inbox  
>  Message Status: Opened  
>  Sender: getmean@gmail.com  
>  To: esledge@pacu.edu  
>  From: M. Shelton  
>  (no subject)  
>  Nov 7, 2009 11:30AM
> 
> <http://www.cracked.com/article/197_the-7-most-badass-last-stands-in-history-battle/>
> 
> can u pick up some aaa batteries? i promse 2 pay u bak  
> 

_______________________

It rains a lot in November—cold, miserable weather that cuts straight through wet clothing with slicing winds. Snafu hates it, hates the long walk from the MG house to the engineering complex on these cold rainy days. Cars seem to serve no better purpose than to spray gutter water at his feet so that he can be sullen about his wet socks all day. He spends all of his time either sitting in the physics department library alternating between doing his work and glaring out the window or in the MG house—all done to minimize the time he has to spend outside. He doesn’t wander around campus as much as he usually does, has to settle his mouth into a firm line as he single-mindedly goes back and forth from building to building in the most efficient trajectory.

It’s mostly his own fault, really, for not buying an umbrella. His windbreaker does a shit job at keeping out the cold and wet, probably because it was bought on sale from Kmart two years ago. Whenever he sheds the damn thing, his clothes are damp and he’s always torn between changing into something drier or giving into his laziness and waiting for it to dry out.

Eugene’s sitting in the living room when he enters the house and he barely glances up from his laptop as Snafu closes the front door after himself. Snafu drips on in the entryway for a few minutes before he walks into the living room and drops his backpack on the ground, taking a seat on the sofa next to where Eugene has spread out his notes about mitosis. He leaves a damp thumbprint on one as he picks it up.

“How come you’re studying down here?”

Eugene gives him a look that’s half amused, half annoyed, “Someone has invaded my desk with calculus.”

Snafu peels off his wet socks and drops them on the ground. He picks up the rest of Eugene’s notes and flips through them as he swings his legs up to monopolize the newly freed space, burrowing his cold toes underneath Eugene’s thigh.

“I’m not your personal space heater,” Eugene informs him, trying to wiggle away. Snafu just stretches out more, humming in agreement as he sets the notes down on the coffee table.

“You aren’t—“ Eugene says, looking over at Snafu and then cutting himself off. Snafu has his eyes closed and his arms folded over his stomach and Eugene is torn between making Snafu clear off his desk so he can actually work there and letting Snafu sleep. He pauses, his jaw tenses briefly and he sighs and turns his attention back onto the powerpoint slides on his laptop.

Snafu doesn’t have to open his eyes to know that Eugene’s gone back to studying and he can’t help but smile a tiny bit in victory.

_______________________

> Received Using: esledge@pacu.edu  
>  Folder: Inbox  
>  Message Status: Opened  
>  Sender: rleckie@pacu.edu  
>  To: pacific.mg@googlegroups.com  
>  From: Robert Leckie  
>  Heating  
>  Nov 10, 2009 1:15PM
> 
> Bros,
> 
> So unless you’ve been living at your girlfriend’s expensive apartment on Lancaster and shirking your pledgemaster duties CHUCKLER you might have noticed that the heat’s been going in and out consistently these last few days. I sent in a maintenance request and housing said they’d be around sometime later this week to check on it. Meanwhile, we’ll just have to suck it up.
> 
> Just to clarify: no Hoosier, this is not an opportunity to break out the power tools.
> 
> Leckie

_______________________

The state of affairs on Eugene’s desk is messier than he remembers it ever being. It’s almost one in the morning and he’s on his third mug of coffee, staring wide-eyed at the mechanisms for the pentose shunt pathway. It’s T-minus less than 48 hours to his biochemistry exam on Monday and for some bizarre reason, Ryan Cabrera has been on repeat for the last hour. He can’t remember when or why he ever downloaded this terribly embarrassing music but _on the way down_ does a great job of describing the trend of his exam scores if he doesn’t get at least a standard deviation above average on this midterm.

It’s quiet in the MG house this Saturday night because John invited the entire frat down to a club in the city to party with the football team. Eugene’s pretty sure that he’s the only one who isn’t hitting on cheerleaders right now due to the fact that that his midterm schedule seems perpetually interested in cockblocking him at any given moment. He’s already had to send terse texts in response to Rakhi’s tipsy ones and if he has to deal with another _aw lame :(_ text, he will explode.

Somewhere in the mess of papers covering his desk are his lecture notes for the first twenty slides of this powerpoint and he’s patiently shifting through notebooks and flipping through his textbook in effort to find them when there’s a brief knock on his door. He doesn’t have time to grunt a response before someone lets themselves in and he doesn’t even have to look up to know that it’s Snafu who’s leaning against the doorframe and probably regarding his laptop with a vaguely disgusted expression. Eugene doesn’t actually care, because he’s pretty sure he’s seen Lindsay Lohan and Hilary Duff in Snafu’s music library before so it’s not exactly like he’s a connoisseur of taste when it comes to music.

“My room is fucking freezing,” Snafu says and it sounds like he’s trying hard and failing to make the words not come low out on a whine. He’s slurring his words a little bit and Eugene really doesn’t have time to humor him, especially when drunk. Snafu shuffles towards him in his periphery and he _still_ can’t find these damn notes. “Can I—?”

“Okay, whatever,” Eugene agrees, not really listening and he gestures briefly to the ground around his desk where he’s stacked Snafu’s calculus textbook and paperwork, “By the way, I put your stuff on the floor.”

Snafu makes an assenting noise to show that he’s heard and then he lapses into silence. Eugene’s found his notes and he’s so busy scrolling through the slides trying to memorize the steps of lipogenesis that he forgets Snafu is in the room. It’s not until almost an entire hour later when he’s running low on caffeine and his previous frantic paging through the lecture slides is slowing down to a reasonable crawl that he decides that three in the morning may not be the best time for optimal cramming. He turns off his laptop, thinks about brushing his teeth and wonders how many hours of sleep he’d be able to get before he’s woken by JP’s girlfriend screaming _yes, harder, faster_ through the wall.

It’s at this point in time that Eugene realizes that Snafu is sleeping in his bed.

He digs his knuckles briefly into his eyes, blinks away the stars and yeah, Snafu’s still curled up on his side under his comforter. For a moment Eugene tries to remember how Snafu had phrased his question because he’s pretty sure that if he had explicitly mentioned _sleep_ and _on your bed_ in the same sentence, he would have probably responded with _go_ and _puke somewhere else_.

“Shelton,” Eugene mutters, reaching a hand out to shake Snafu by the shoulder lightly, “Hey Snafu.”

Snafu doesn’t open his eyes but he rolls over so that he’s taking up the half by the wall. Eugene frowns slightly and leans over to prod him in the back, “C’mon Snafu.”

“Go to sleep,” Snafu mumbles sleepily without turning back around and then adds belatedly, “No homo.”

Eugene stares at Snafu’s thin shoulders for a moment before he sighs and rolls his eyes. It’s not like the bed isn’t big enough for both of them—Eugene had insisted on a size bigger than a twin when he moved out of the dorms. Snafu doesn’t exactly make the most articulate of arguments but Eugene’s tired and he doesn’t have the energy to kick Snafu out, so he sets the alarm and crawls in under the covers.

_______________________

Snafu wakes up in Eugene’s bed and nearly has a panic attack trying to figure out what the fuck he did last night.

After a few moments of not breathing at all, he realizes that he still has all of his clothes on and it’s not like he’s actually _touching_ Eugene, even though the other boy is turned towards him. The blinds are drawn and from the dimness of the sunlight, Snafu would estimate that it’s somewhere in the area of seven to eight in the morning. He remembers taking too many shots and taking a cab home with a gorgeous blonde—but then she had made some excuse about having a midterm on Monday and he had smiled like a real gentleman and said, that’s no problem and taken her home. The entire time she was looking at him a little sympathetically, a little patronizingly and he remembers hating both her and himself for it all.

It doesn’t solve the mystery of why he’s in Eugene’s bed though. But as moments pass by slowly, he’s realizing that he doesn’t really care. He lets his eyes wander over Eugene’s face, takes in the strong nose, relaxed brow, and slack mouth. His breathing is steady and Snafu is fascinated by the way that his eyes are flickering under his eyelids, caught in some dream. The clean sunlight that filters in past the blinds highlights Eugene’s hair in red-gold and Snafu has to make a conscious effort not to reach forward and trail his fingertips along the line of Eugene’s jaw, to scoot forward and breathe in that soft skin. He can feel his own pulse beat in his neck, the way that it quickens when he thinks about this—and then he has to think about something else entirely because this is getting too fucking dangerous.

It’s entirely pathetic because this is the closest he’s ever going to get.

Barely a moment later and Eugene’s phone is chiming in an alarm and Eugene inhales deeply, makes a disgruntled noise in the back of his throat and opens his eyes blearily.

Snafu can tell the exact moment that Eugene focuses in on him because a series of unguarded expressions pass over his face. There’s recognition and confusion, something strangely unreadable (and Snafu hates the way that he’s projecting, the way that he thinks just for a moment that _maybe_ )—and then Eugene is regarding him with a cross of wariness and irritation.

“Mornin’ gorgeous,” Snafu purrs, just because he can.

Eugene rolls over and turns the insistent alarm off. He sits up and stretches his arms, shirt riding up barely half an inch to reveal a pale sliver of skin. It takes all of Snafu’s willpower not to fixate on it.

“Thanks for last night,” Snafu adds, just for a reaction.

Eugene shakes his head and gives the impression of rolling his eyes without actually doing it but he’s smiling despite himself, “Get out of my bed.”

Snafu stretches out, regards the way that Eugene picks through the clothes on the ground briefly before sighing and giving up. He turns on the lamp and the laptop and he’s sitting back down at his desk, looking into the contents of his coffee mug with a vaguely disgusted expression.

Snafu wants to say something, something about working too hard and not relaxing enough—he wants to say something but his hangover is catching up with him and when he turns on his side, he finds himself falling asleep again.

_______________________

_______________________

Four o’clock Monday morning and Eugene still hasn’t slept. T-minus six hours until his biochemistry final and he’s sitting in the kitchen with a steady stream of coffee and half a hundred notecards that he still hasn’t fully memorized. He’s frustrated and a little bit angry and kind of ready to turn around and snap or bitch at the first person who has the misfortune of trying to address him this morning—except he doesn’t even have the _time_ to be doing that. It’s probably for the best that there’s nobody up this early.

Somewhere between four thirty and five o’clock, Eugene nods off into his biochemistry textbook and it isn’t until five-thirty that he wakes up to the clatter of pans against the ground. He sits up immediately and whips around to find John guiltily picking up the two pots that had crashed to the ground moments earlier.

“Sorry Eugene,” he says, setting a pan on the stove and shoving the pots back into the cupboard.

“No—I shouldn’t be sleeping,” Eugene replies but he’s still a little disoriented from being dragged out of sleep so quickly so the words come out thickly. He reaches automatically for the cup of coffee but it’s empty.

“Midterm today?” John asks, tossing a bit of vegetable oil into the pan before turning the stove on. He cracks two eggs and tosses them in. Eugene answers with a sound that vaguely resembles a grunt.

He tosses out the used filter in the coffeemaker and spills water all over the counter when he tries to pour more into the coffeemaker. John touches him on the shoulder briefly before gently prying the pot from his fingers and easing the rest of the water in. Eugene does his best not to make a frustrated noise but the sentiment must show on his face because John retreats and lets him scoop in two cups of ground coffee.

The oil sizzles quietly in the pan and the coffeemaker makes deep gurgling noises. Eugene slumps at the table and stares blankly at the notecards spread out across the table.

“You get any sleep last night?” John asks. Eugene shakes his head.

“They say that sleeping the night before a midterm is the most important to consolidating what you’ve studied,” John says, “It’s probably best if you try to sleep off the next few hours instead of trying to cram. You’ve been studying all weekend, haven’t you?”

Eugene shrugs slightly—John knows he has. There’s a brief silence and then John sets down an egg in front of him, gives him a fork and sits across the table with his own. Eugene stares stupidly at it.

“Please don’t tell me you’ve been studying so long that you’ve forgotten how to use a fork.”

He picks up the utensil, slants a tired but grateful smile at John and cuts into the egg. A bit of yolk runs out.

“Hey Eugene,” John says, and it’s all serious, solemn enough to make Eugene raise his eyes. John’s looking at him with this tiny frown on his face and oh god he looks _concerned_ like he’s _worried_ and Eugene half wants to shut his eyes against the disappointment there. John leans forward and he’s looking Eugene straight in the eye, “Look Eugene, I admire you for being so dedicated to this but I’m a little worried. Hell, we all are. This—what you do: not sleeping, spending ages in the library, never coming out with us—Eugene college is supposed to be the highlight of your life. You’re supposed to take years off of your life from doing stupid shit—not from stressing yourself out.”

Eugene puts a piece of egg into his mouth, mostly so that he doesn’t have to answer John right away. His brow furrows and he looks up at John who’s still looking at him.

“When you register for classes next semester,” John carries on, apparently not minding the fact that Eugene isn’t responding, “I know this great English class that fulfills one of the general requirements. You just have to show up for class, you write one paper the entire year. The boys on the football team take it.”

Eugene swallows, smiles a little uncertainly, “Thanks John.”

John tilts his head before giving him something like a grin back and cuts into his egg.

_______________________

> Nov 18, 2009 3:59:12 PM  
>  Callback Number: Sidney Phillips (Mobile)  
>  are you coming back to mobile for thxgiving?
> 
> Nov 18, 2009 4:01:22 PM  
>  Parents coming north instead & we’re going to Edward’s.
> 
> Nov 18, 2009 4:05:55 PM  
>  Callback Number: Sidney Phillips (Mobile)  
>  just keep ditching us gene! when you coming home?
> 
> Nov 18, 2009 4:08:15 PM  
>  12/18? 12/22? Idk, finals schedule not finalized.

_______________________

“Hey,” Eugene says as he climbs out onto the fire escape. Snafu grunts a greeting in reply and brings a cigarette to his lips as Eugene closes the window after himself. Winter is rapidly approaching and the sky is a blanket of grey stretching towards the uneven horizon, casting everything in a pale, uncertain light. Eugene draws his jacket around himself a little tighter and seats himself next to Snafu.

It’s quiet out here. The shouts of late fall have been erased by the temperature, the birds are heading south for the summer. There’s something like a quiet sense of finality in the bare branches, in the anticipation of snow.

“You heading home next week?” the words ride out on a wisp of vapor. The end of Snafu’s cigarette glows brightly before dimming again. Snafu tips his head slightly, looking at Eugene.

He turns his head away to breathe the smoke out and he’s still looking away when he answers, “No.”

Eugene stares at his hands. They’re still warm but he can feel the bite of the cold air. Snafu shifts slightly next to him.

“Pointless to spend a couple hundred to go back for three days,” Snafu adds.

Eugene isn’t sure who he’s trying to convince. He breathes in—it smells like Snafu’s cigarette and cheap detergent mixed in with the cloying scent of dead leaves caught on the fire escape—and looks up at the sky. He can feel the warmth of Snafu’s side seeping through the short distance between them, even through his coat, and he realizes that Snafu doesn’t have to say anything else to make him understand. Snafu wants to go home. Snafu’s worried about his mother. He wants to go home and he can’t do anything about it.

“Hey,” Eugene says, “My parents are coming up. Come with me to New York.”

Snafu looks at him then. A corner of his lips tilts up slightly in something like a flat smile and Eugene has the strangest fleeting urge to brush it with the pad of his thumb.

“I’ll think about it,” Snafu says.

_______________________

> Received Using: esledge@pacu.edu  
>  Folder: Inbox  
>  Message Status: Opened  
>  Sender: andrew@haldanetextile.com  
>  To: esledge@pacu.edu  
>  From: Andrew Haldane  
>  (no subject)  
>  Nov 23, 2009 10:15AM
> 
> Hey Eugene,
> 
> Just thought I’d see how you were doing. How has the semester been?
> 
> A
> 
> _
> 
> Sent Using: esledge@pacu.edu  
>  Folder: Outbox  
>  Message status: Sent  
>  To: andrew@haldanetextile.com  
>  Re: (no subject)  
>  Nov 23, 2009 5:23PM
> 
> Hey Skip!  
>  Semester’s been pretty good. Can’t wait to go home though!  
>  Been putting that business degree to good use? Any chance you might visit sometime soon?  
>  Eugene

_______________________

They’re up at seven AM standing outside in the rain with their bags trying to catch the early bus to New York. The bus terminal has an overhang from under which they can stare out balefully at the nearly-frozen rain and it keeps their bags dry. The building itself doesn’t actually open until eight. Eugene kind of wishes he had a coffee—if not for the caffeine, then the warmth it’d provide his hands.

They should have taken the train. The bus is already running ten minutes late.

Snafu is picking at a thread on his umbrella, staring a little listlessly at the puddles illuminated by the incandescent glow of streetlamps, the watery brightness forming an almost oily sheen on the ground. It had taken a bit of persuasion on Eugene’s behalf to convince him to come—Snafu could be amazingly antisocial at times.

Eugene lets out a breath into the cold air, watches it dissipate. He’s surprised that Snafu isn’t chain smoking his way through a pack of cigarettes before the bus finally makes an appearance.

Neither of them break the silence. Maybe it’s too cold, maybe it’s too early—Eugene’s too worn out from the marathon of school to strike up some sort of conversation. It’s fine though—there’s nothing particularly uncomfortable about the silence.

When they finally do get on the bus, Snafu wordlessly takes the window seat. Eugene watches the other passengers settle into their seats and surreptitiously stretches his legs out into the aisle when the bus starts to move. He recognizes some of the faces on the bus—the girl two seats in front of them was in his intro physics course and he’s fairly sure that the boy sitting in the front seat pledged MG with him for three short days before dropping out. He turns to Snafu, wants to say something about it—

Snafu has his head tilted against the window, eyes closed.

Eugene looks at the profile of his face for a long moment before leaning his head back and closing his eyes.

_______________________

It’s been a crappy morning—the bus dropped them off miles from where they were supposed to be, effectively rendering the mapquest printout to his parents’ hotel entirely useless. He’s only been in New York City a couple of times before and never in the capacity of navigator so they end up going in the wrong direction on the subway for almost ten minutes before Eugene catches the mistake and righted them.

By the time they’re finally deposited in front of the Hilton, Eugene’s understandably a little irritated. Snafu hasn’t really said much at all but he’s thrown Eugene these slightly amused looks sometimes, like he’s laughing at him and his frustration without daring to laugh out loud. Eugene isn’t stupid—he catches a good percentage of them and they irritate him even more—half of him wants to shove the GPS on his blackberry at Snafu and tell _him_ to figure it out then.

So when his mother says, “Oh Eugene!” all dramatically and holds her arms out towards him as she approaches him (he’s forgotten her flair for melodrama—one of the multiple reasons why he had chosen to attend a school so far away), it takes all of his willpower not to scowl in response but instead to easy something like a tired smile onto his face and hug her back.

“Hey mom.” He loves his mother, he really does. It’s just sometimes she can be a bit too much, a little overbearing in her expectations. His gaze shifts to his father, who’s standing back a few paces, smiling warmly. Eugene smiles and this time it’s less forced, “Hey dad.”

“And you must be Merriell!” At the very least, the full force of his mother’s attention is brief.

He can almost sense the way that Snafu shifts his weight from foot to foot uncomfortably without even having to turn around to see. He’s all polite smiles and his Cajun drawl is more pronounced than usual when he says, “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet the boy that Eugene speaks so often of,” she smiles at Snafu. There is a beat where none of them say anything at all and there’s a moment when Snafu’s polite smile slips a little uncertainly—but then his mother is fussing at his jacket and saying, “Pa, why don’t you give these boys their hotel room key and we can go put our things upstairs? Are you boys hungry? We can go find some brunch in this city—plenty of places to eat.”

“Mary, why don’t you give Eugene a little room to breathe?” his dad says gently, one hand at the back of her elbow and the other drawing out a packet from his pocket which he hands to Eugene, “Boys, why don’t you go put your things in your room? We’ll wait down here.”

Eugene takes the key, gives his dad a grateful smile and jerks his head towards the elevators to indicate that Snafu should follow. His mother brushes his shoulders one last time and gives him a smile as he turns.

The elevator doors are barely closed when Eugene exhales through his nose and says, “Jesus.”

Snafu raises an eyebrow at him in the reflective surface of the elevator doors.

“I swear she still thinks I’m five or something.”

Snafu smirks a little at that, shifts his bag on his shoulders, “She the type to plan all of your activities since you were a toddler? Took you to all of your playdates, all of your soccer games?”

Eugene just rubs at his eyes in response. The elevator dings and they’re on the fourteenth floor. Eugene glances down at the key in his hand before glancing at Snafu casually.

“You hungry?”

“Eugene, if we go anywhere where there is more than one fork or if there is anything _deconstructed_ on the menu, I will promptly _die_ of shame.”

“I forgot that the apex of your culinary taste starts with Wendy’s and ends with Chinese takeout,” Eugene replies dryly, but he can trace the hints of uneasiness in the tone of Snafu’s voice, in the way that he’s carrying himself a little bit stiffer in this hotel. All at once, Eugene understands.

He slides the keycard into the door to unlock it and swings it open. When Snafu enters, he looks at his surroundings a little warily and doesn’t immediately drop his bag onto one of the beds like Eugene does.

“Almost as big as the room I got to myself for Edward’s graduation in Boston,” Eugene observes. He turns, looks at Snafu with something like a lightly self-deprecating tone in his voice, “I had two beds and couldn’t decide which one to sleep in, so I ended up alternating beds every night.”

It’s the best way that he can say _you’re not imposing_ without actually saying it.

Snafu shakes his head, “You have way too much money.”

But he drops his bag on one of the beds and Eugene can see a little bit of that tension run out of his shoulders and really, it’s all that matters.

_______________________

The apartment that Edward shares with his fiancée is really too small for all of them to fit comfortably—but really, any space in Manhattan is bound to be both outrageously expensive and severely cramped. Eugene’s father has somehow been recruited to the kitchen with his mother and Edward’s fiancée, leaving Eugene, Snafu, and Edward sitting in the living room with the football game playing. Eugene isn’t particularly invested but both Edward and Snafu are marginally interested if not more and he doesn’t mind humoring them.

It’s during a particularly long stretch of commercials that Edward decides to strike up a conversation.

“So, Merriell,” he says, setting his beer onto a coaster on the coffeetable, “What are you studying at Pacific?”

Snafu is slouched against the back of the couch next to Eugene, hands cradled around a can of coke. He looks up when Eugene’s brother addresses him, though. “Mechanical engineering.”

“And what are you planning to do with that after school?” Maybe Edward’s just bored and humoring this conversation—it’s the same kind of small talk that Eugene knows from experience kind of drives Snafu crazy.

“I’m on a military scholarship,” it’s probably the millionth time that Eugene’s heard Snafu say those words, “I’ll owe them a few years of service after.”

Edward seems to perk up a little at that though and he leans forward slightly, “Yeah? What branch?”

And Snafu brightens slightly as well with the way that the corner of his lip twitches up slightly, “Marines.”

Edward nods approvingly, gives him a smile, “If I didn’t come to law school, I would have joined the army.”

“As if ma would have let you,” Eugene mutters. Edward snorts slightly.

“You know granddad started off in world war two? He was a marine,” Edward’s only kind of paying attention to the game now and not really even looking at it, “Pity we never got to talk to him.”

Eugene nods, doesn’t really know what else to contribute. Grandad had died long before they were born.

“You think we’ll still be in Iraq by the time you get deployed?” Edward asks Snafu.

“If not Iraq, probably Afghanistan,” Snafu answers, “If neither of those two, I’ll end up—somewhere.”

It’s a life that Edward never got the chance to have and Eugene can’t fault him for sounding a little wistful. Sometimes Eugene wonders if he’s really capable of just dropping out of law school and signing up to be an officer. He’s got the mind for it, the drive—but he’s also retained enough sense to realize that the glory of the trade isn’t the same as it was years and years ago. Maybe that’s what’s holding him back. Eugene doesn’t know, but whatever it is, he’s willing to bet that his mother’s grateful for it.

“You looking forward to being deployed?” Edward asks and Eugene turns his head to actually look at Snafu because he’s suddenly interested in this answer.

Snafu blinks slowly once, looks from Edward’s face to Eugene’s and his smile is dry.

“Sure,” he says, and it’s not really an answer at all. Eugene wants to press him for something more definitive but the Cowboys score a touchdown and the conversation is lost.


End file.
